


Swept Away

by QuantumFizzx



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Costume Party, Deception, F/M, Halloween, Smut, Urban Legends, an attempt to be eerie, everyone is alive and lives at the compound, references to past canon events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-28 12:03:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20778266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuantumFizzx/pseuds/QuantumFizzx
Summary: Bucky feels strangely drawn to a woman at a Halloween party thrown at the Avengers compound.





	Swept Away

**Author's Note:**

> Bucky Barnes x Reader. Except - not? There’s really no way to explain this upfront without giving the whole thing away. It is a nameless female character but it’s also not “fictional you” as a reader because I could not get that to work within this mystery concept. 
> 
> Warnings: Smut, I’m calling this Dub-Con (but only in the sense that things might not be what they seem) Language, mild Angst, an attempt to be eerie.

It’s loud like parties always are and Bucky welcomes a reason not to join in their bickering, no matter how playful. 

“It’s the principle, really.” Steve says, sniffs whatever Thor tipped into his glass this time. 

“Yes, that’s my point. Thank you. Don’t make a rule and then break it,” Rhodey gripes, adjusting the gold construction paper shooting star taped to the center of his shirt.

“I believe the rule as stated was ‘don’t spend more than $10 on a superhero costume.’ I spent zero dollars on this ensemble.” Tony gestures at the Mark 5 armor he’s wearing. “What we need is a neutral party analysis, who will then concur I am winning at not spending.”

Clint twirls an empty beer bottle between his fingers. “Look, I’m not saying that it’s cheating to come as yourself...”

“I sense a ‘but’ in there somewhere,” Nat says.

“I sense a butt right here,” Rocket chimes in. He’s dressed no differently, having openly complained he didn’t see the point and costumes sound more like some of the stupid shit Quill would be into. 

Steve flicks the deep red bed sheet pinned to the back of his shirt, making it swoosh around his feet, casually flipping what no one needs to know is Thor’s actual hammer. The group chatters on as he surveys the room, pausing when he spies Bucky in a far corner, his arm slipping artfully around the waist of a very pretty woman in a white post-Edwardian nightdress. She seems familiar but he can’t really get a good look at her and, considering Bucky’s clearly enthralled with her, he doesn’t think he should be trying to get a better look. They appear deep in conversation, the woman’s hair falling across her face like a wave. It’s intimate, the way they lean in, and suddenly Steve feels like he’s intruding. He coughs and returns his attention back to the current debate. 

***

_She curls further into his side, burrows her chilled shoulder down where he’s warm and snug. Her head falls back to look up at him with doe-eyes. He gets lost in them, irises so peaceful and deep, dark like still waters, like starless night sky. She runs her hand over the blue near-ancient canvas stretched across his chest, traces the white star with an elegant digit. _

_He leans in, almost captures her lips. Forgets it’s not private. Like there’s no one else. Like there shouldn’t ever be. She offers her neck, bends so far back that it’s a bit unnatural, but he brushes the thought away. He shakes his head, tries to recall something. It seems important. Scratching at his brain. _

_He stops, pulls back. His eyes pinch. He doesn’t know this woman. Doesn’t know anything about her. But he wants to. He wants to know her. Maybe that’s what he couldn’t remember. “What’s…” Runs his nose along her cheek. “What’s your name, Darlin’?”_

_Did she already tell him that? Did he already ask?_

***  
“Tell me again, how is coming as yourself and wearing your actual multi-million dollar suit not breaking the rules?” Nat saunters across the circle, grabbing a drink off the bar.

“I’m just saying, that since you were the guy who made the rule, it’s kinda weird that you’re the one breaking it.” Clint sets his bottle down with a clink that sounds a bit more irritated than he appears. 

“Point of order: Cap lent his costume to two people.” Tony feigns deep offense, gestures toward Scott.

“What? This? Nah, I hand-sewed this baby myself for Comic-Con years ago.” Scott stands proudly, hands on heroically on his hips. 

Tony’s eyes roll back into his brain. “That still leaves Barnes and his circa WW2 Star-Spangled-ness? Care to explain the museum piece over there and the clothes he’s wearing while you’re at it?”

***

_She smiles softly, delicate. Her features unbothered despite that it seems he’s forgotten her. Goes up on her toes and places cool fingertips on his fevered lips. Pushes her own together in a silent hush and he feels it in his gut - feels himself give in to something more than gravity pulling him down, twisting. He leans in toward those lotus-petal painted lips, almost...almost. _

_She pulls back just a little. Smile shy, but somehow not. A little knowing. Knows a secret she’s going to show him. He doesn’t like secrets; he’s kept too many, he’s been too many. Doesn’t trust them. _

_But he wants to know hers. Wants her. Needs to see where this leads. _

_Her fingers entwine with his, pull him fluidly toward the exit door. _

_And he forgets. Forgets they are leaving a brightly lit room, forgets there are people who might miss him, forgets everyone, everything but the promise of losing himself in her._

***  
Steve shrugs. “Bucky asked how much trouble it would be to borrow it. Turns out it wasn’t much trouble,” he says, pulling his eyes away from the door Bucky had disappeared through. 

“Excellent!” Tony claps. “Now that we can all agree the utilization of old suits is not a budget factor, let’s discuss what I am sure is a fascinating reason why Wilson here jumped on the opportunity to dress as a defunct Russian asset.”

Sam scoffs and pretends to smooth the aluminum foil wrapped around his left arm. “The Winter Soldier? Nah, my arm’s just dressed as a baked potato.” 

***  
_Her fingers swim up under his shirt and along each rib like organ keys. He’s draped over her, touching every inch, body covering her like a blanket, a pall. Their kisses swell and he dives in when her mouth parts for him. At first a shallow exploration, his warm pink tongue skimming inside until she, impatient and sudden, curls into his mouth and catches it. _

_The party and the lights feel a million leagues away. The sounds muffled and distant as if they’ve sneaked off to skinnydip not go necking in a backseat._

_Lips and teeth banging, urgent. She’s under and around him all at once. Calling him to claim her like the open sea. _

_Hot breath rushes from him as he pulls away and she floats up to follow but then settles back flat along the seat, smiling up at him. Hair splayed out around her face in waves and her face glowing like the moon. _

_It registers with him that they’re in a parking lot, in the back of a car. It seems like new information, as if he had just realized. Must have been too busy kissing her, touching her because he doesn't know how they got here. Doesn’t remember clambering into the car. It’s large and old. A Studebaker? A Streamliner?_

_No, that can’t be right._

***

“Hey, Mr. Stark. Cool Costume. Ned dressed as Mark 5 in 3rd grade.” Peter scurries up, acting slightly winded, as most of the crowd shoots daggers at him. “It, uh, it looks way better on you though.” He looks hopefully around, checking if that fixed whatever he’d said wrong. 

Shuddering, as if he’s just recalled what he’d come to say, Peter looks back quickly over his shoulder at the doorway Bucky and the woman walked out. “That’s all kinds of creepy. Just like that urban legend, right?”

“When it comes to questionable bed partners, I am spectacularly aware that I have no room to talk. But what is the deal with Steve’s pal and Coraline?” Tony gestures over his shoulder. “There’s a line between cute and creepy. But that one just runs a bit too realistic as The Woman in White.”

Steve looks between them and the door again. “The what?”

***

_He presses his lips to her neck. Runs his tongue up a long trail to the shell of her ear._

_Soft. He’s never felt anything so soft in his hands. Breasts like silt, spilling under his palms. Soft every place he’s hard. He’s so hard, aching with it. Cock straining, reducing him down to that near-pain desire. He wants to bury himself between her thighs, drown himself inside her._

_She pulls the gown free from her shoulders and it pools around her. She arches up to him. Offers. Urges. _

_Insists. _

_He licks his lips and wants more. Already can’t remember what she tastes like, saltwater or sweetened honey? He kisses her again, soft press against his tongue and he’s thirsty. Parched. Dives in for more but each touch leaves him wanting more. More heat. More water. More...air._

_She’s under him and begging him. _

_“Take me.”_

_Rouge tongue runs over chapped lips as he comes up for a breath. “You don’t have to ask me twice, Sugar.” He rasps, lungs seized up in want. _

_Her hands dig into blue shoulders and her legs wrap around red and white stripes, clasping behind the small of his back. Pulling him down to her, pulling him under. _

_Fog coats the windows. Their want dripping in rivulets down the glass. The air is thick with it, clings to his lungs, each breath heavy, laboring. _

_“Hang on babe,” he pulls back, heart racing gulping down air. “Whew. Huh. Wow.” He looks around, squints, trying to get his bearings. “Gimme a sec, okay?”_

_She smiles again, sweet as rain. Shakes her head slowly, hair swirling around, a tangle of moss on the seat. Locks her hands behind his neck and digs her heels into his thighs._

_She reaches down inside his pants and draws him out, a whisper caress on his length. Barely there, but possessive. Hers._

_“Take me.”_

_“Yeah, you’re right,” he gasps, breathless. Gasps as strokes him. “I’ll make it good, so good for you.” _

_He wants her. Wants her like air. “Can’t wait. Gotta have you - now.”_

_She flips him over, deft like he weighs nothing and he floats beneath her. Straddles his hips and anchors him, grinding onto his cock. Her head falls back again, does that deep swoon to expose the marble column of her neck. And he feels again like he needs to stop her, to catch her head and stop her. To cradle her skull._

***

“I can tell you, Cap,” Sam says, leaning in conspiratorially, “but you and I are going to have a long chat later about how you manage to interact with other humans every day and still stay so damned isolated.”

Steve gives Sam a withering look but motions for him to continue. 

“The story goes, there’s a ghost that wanders the area. She fell for a guy years ago and got abandoned. The story changes in the details. Sometimes she died in childbirth, jumped off a bridge, whatever. But one detail is always the same: heartbreaker was shipping off to war the next day. So, she, you know, ‘did it for her country.’ But the guy never comes back and she dies, waiting for him. Wandering the road leading to where they were last together.”

“Huh, that’s super weird,” Scott says, throwing back what he immediately learns is heavily-spiked cider, his eyes going wide on the burn. 

“Ghost stories are weird by definition, Scott” Nat says, licking the rim of her glass. 

“No,” Scott coughs, throwing back two more cider shots in quick succession. “I mean it’s weird because I picked her up on the road coming here. She asked all slow and dramatic about her soldier - I guess she is just super into Halloween - and I was gonna call her an Uber but then she said she was looking for Stark’s thing.”

Steve is incredibly done with this entire conversation. Peter, the exact opposite, presses for more info. “Which road?”

Sam shrugs dismissively. “The one by the old fairgrounds.”

Scott chokes on a fourth shot. “Down in Queens.”

“You mean the fairgrounds where Howard Stark held the first Expo?” Steve say, unblinking. All fun gone. 

Suddenly, Steve knows where he’s seen her. It’s just been a very, very long time since 1943.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Tony says, eyes locked on Steve. 

“Are you saying that I picked up a...a... ghost and rode with her for an hour? Guys...guys, I need to sit down.” Scott wobbles, hand shooting out to steady himself on Rocket. Rocket steps aside. 

Before Scott’s ass hits the floor, everyone else is out the door. 

***

_She sinks down around him, fluid and silk. Her hands press into his chest. His warm muscles tense and brown nipples pebble in her touch’s wake. _

_As she rides him, the night’s light behind her makes her hair look like a halo floating out around her. A thought breaks through that she looks familiar - he does know her - but she’s just one more thing he lost along the way. _

_He wants to tell her they can make this new, start over, whatever went wrong before, he can fix it and it wasn’t his fault and didn’t mean to leave her and please forgive him because he didn’t mean to toss her away._

_Wait._

_Wait..._

_He recalls a flash of her face, dry and bright. She’s looking up at him in his brown uniform. Red car hovering on a stage behind her. Then, as suddenly as it came, the picture’s gone, popped like a burst bubble._

***

Steve and Sam are first out the back, toward the dock. Peter has a legit meltdown but still manages to check every car. They’re all empty.

“Cap! There!” Clint shouts, pointing out at the water. 

The middle of the goddamn lake.

In the goddamn, deathly still, dark lake.

***

_She glides over him and it’s so desperate and slippery. Everything urgent when all he’d really wanted is to take his time. To do this right. Bring her some daisies - or, no, she'd like lilies he thinks dumbly and runs his hands up to cup her face. He wants to show her a good time before he ships out in the morning and see if she has a different friend for Steve. _

_The guilt is raw and burrowing in his heart he can’t shake it but he doesn’t quite know why._

_Maybe that’s her secret. What she wanted to show him._

_It’s that she deserves better than this back seat in a parked car outside Stark’s expo. He starts to say sorry but is silenced with another watery kiss._

_Burning starts low in his back, the building pull low in his spine, and he wants to come. Desperate for his end._

_Maybe it’s too much because she can have it all she can have him and he’s not scared - but a small spark fires some forgotten place in his mind, that he is scared - that maybe he should be._

_Sliding over him, bend and rock. Tight. He surges up into her again and again. His release looms, vision tunneled down to her. Nothing but her and the sweet hold, the way she’s anchored him down after so many years adrift._

_He thinks blindly that he should warn her. Opens his mouth but she swallows his words._

_Then he’s coming, pulsing out of him like lifeblood. Breathless and drained. And he’s so tired._

_Peaceful. Serene._

_“Take me,” she sings._

_He can’t hold on. Body aches for rest._

_Her brow furrows. “Take me home.” _

_His eyes flutter. He starts to form the words, but just...can’t._

_He would’ve taken her home and not left. He didn’t mean to make it seem like it must have seemed. He didn’t just throw her away. But it was war and he wasn’t expecting the hell it brought or the hell that came after. It had all seemed so innocent in that old back seat, with his promises he didn’t mean to break._

_She grinds down, damned serum refractory period kicking in. He swells against all reason and moves with her until she shakes and clenches, nails digging into his skin, a mournful wail spiraling out of her as he feels himself spill again._

_She touches his neck, feels his pulse stutter out, slow. Her face is confused. Head shaking. _

_He takes her hand, holds it to his heart. An apology._

_Then, she rails back, wretches and twists. She slips through his fingers like time, like silk, like thread._

_What was once solid, warm like new sun on a cold sill, now shifts. Contorts and writhes, skin viscus and pooling around his fingers like so much rancid dough._

_He wants to care but he wants to sleep. Just rest his eyes. Just for a second. It doesn’t feel right but he can’t make himself care. It’s so quiet and peaceful, down here where she used to be solid, where he used to be warm._

***

Then, when he’s almost gone, when peace has fired off in nearly every cell, he’s yanked free. 

Colder than he’s ever been. Night air like a fire burning, like he is nothing but frostbite dropped in a boiling pot.

Sam drags him up onto the dock and collapses beside him. Sam’s face is drawn and terrified and their clothes soggy and weighted, water running off between the wooden planks.

“The Hell Barnes? Party full of perfectly available, alive folk and that’s the strange you go for.”


End file.
